Anyone who knows me can tell you I'm nothing if not punctual.

Ask my wife.

She'll tell you I always insist on getting to the airport two hours early. It's an obsession, she'll say. My commitment to being on time is bizarre, she'll say.

So, to make a very long story short, the day before yesterday, I was running a little bit late – by my standards. But I still got to the airport more than an hour before my flight to Jacksonville, Fla. This would be the time my wife, and most non-obsessed people, would plan to get to the airport for a routine, 90-minute, non-stop domestic flight.

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But I noticed right away Dulles Airport was unusually busy. The United Airlines ticket counter was a mess. The conveyor belt that takes your luggage wherever it goes when it leaves the ticket counter was not working. People were testy – especially the gate agents, especially my gate agent.

My flight was scheduled for 4:20 p.m., and just before 4 p.m., I finally reached the agent. I have already mentally reconciled I would not make my flight unless it was delayed. Dulles security is notoriously slow, so, if the flight is on time, I'm dead meat.

Right off the bat, the ticket agent (oh, how I wish I made note of her name!) was quick to blame me for getting to the airport late. Me – the guy who is obsessively early! I suggested that United Airlines should be able to get ticketed passengers boarding passes in under 45 minutes.

She didn't like that.

I don't know if she decided right then and there to punish me for my insolence. But, whatever her intent, she did just that.

After informing me my flight was already closed, she asked if I would like to be rebooked on the next flight to Jacksonville more than three hours later. I said OK. After checking her computer, she determined it was full. She could only get me on standby.

I said OK.

In a few minutes, I had my boarding pass and my claim check for my checked bag, neither of which did I inspect before heading for security and the gate.

Since I had three hours, I ambled along, rather than powerwalked like I usually do in airports. By 4:30, I had reached my gate.

Surprise! My original flight to Jacksonville, scheduled for 4:20, had not departed. It had been delayed until at least 5 p.m.

I asked the gate agent if I could still get on this flight since I was originally booked on it and since I only had a standby ticket for the next flight out.

She looked at my boarding pass.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Jacksonville," I said.

"But your boarding pass says Atlanta," she answered.

"It does?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

I explained that the ticket agent had obviously made a mistake, because I had no intention of going to Atlanta, that I had been ticketed for Jacksonville. Believe me, I said, I really do want to go to Jacksonville.

In no time, she had a new boarding pass for me. I still had a 30-minute wait to get on the flight.

But now there was another problem.

My bag.

My claim check indicated it, too, was destined for Atlanta.

I had to speak in Jacksonville. I had to don a suit. I had to look respectable. And here I was headed for my destination in jeans and tennis shoes and no change of clothes.

I asked the gate agent about my bag. Handing her my claim check, I noted it was headed for Atlanta.

"What can we do about this?" I asked. "This is not my fault. I really need my bag in Jacksonville, too. Can you call and retrieve it from that Atlanta flight?"

Do you know what she told me?

She told me it would be done automatically.

"What do you mean it will be done automatically?" I asked.

"As soon as you don't show up for the Atlanta flight, your bag will be taken off the plane and rerouted to Jacksonville," she claimed.

"Let me tell you something," I said. "I'm on my way to Jacksonville now. They won't find out I'm not on the Atlanta flight for at least three hours. Then, you claim, it will automatically find me in Jacksonville. I have a problem with that. I went to the ticket counter 30 minutes ago and expected automatically to get a boarding pass for my destination. That didn't happen. If that's how you treat live human beings who pay hundreds of dollars for the privilege of being treated like cattle, why should I believe my bag, an inanimate object that can't speak, is going to get better treatment."

She wouldn't budge. She wouldn't pick up the phone to try to locate my bag and reroute it even though there was still plenty of time.

Fortunately, I thought at the time, I was able to find a sympathetic security person who located another United Airlines agent. He agreed to make the call, astonished at the incompetence of the ticket agent. He said there was a chance the bag would be found and sent to our plane, but, if not, it would be rerouted to Jacksonville and brought to my hotel room.

This was a better scenario than not getting to Jacksonville at all, I figured, and relaxed – a little.

We boarded the flight.

At 5:30, more than 90 minutes after I had reached the ticket counter at United, the doors were locked and we began to taxi to the runway.

Then we stopped.

"This is the captain," said a voice from up front. "The ground crew noticed a problem and we're going to have to head back to the gate to have a look. I don't anticipate a long delay."

He was right. As airline delays go, this one was not too bad. By 6 p.m., whatever problem had been discovered had been fixed, and we were now ready for takeoff.

I actually thought this delay could be beneficial. It gave the baggage crew an additional 30 minutes to get my luggage on this flight.

Once in the air, the captain informed us we were headed into some really bad weather as we got closer to Florida. (You undoubtedly saw the coverage of the deadly tornadoes and vicious storms wreaking havoc at this time.) He told the passengers on the flight that we would have to keep our seats and stay strapped in during the second half of the flight.

He wasn't kidding.

From 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., the small jet was buffeted by what felt like anti-aircraft fire. Imagine a roller-coaster ride that lasts an hour. Passengers were getting sick. There would be no napping on this flight.

I was beginning to question the wisdom of flying in this kind of weather.

But we got to Jacksonville Airport. The landing was greeted with the loudest applause I have ever heard at the conclusion of a flight.

However, the ordeal was not over – not for me, and not for the rest of the passengers.

As we taxied to the gate, we could see what had been causing our turbulence for the last hour – the hardest rain and the fiercest wind I had ever seen from inside an airplane.

When we got to the gate, the captain informed us it was just raining too hard to get off the plane. The airline didn't want to be responsible for unloading passengers in this monsoon. We would wait, he explained, for a lull in the storm.

Lightning bolts were hitting nearby. The claps of thunder sounded like bombs going off all around us.

Thirty minutes later, the captain apparently decided the rain and wind might never end. The crew opened the door and we stepped out into a wall of water and wind. By the time I got to the terminal, I was soaked from head to toe. We had to wade through two to three inches of water on the ground.

Now, I thought, I'm due for some good luck. Maybe, just maybe, my bag had made the flight.

But not only had the airline lost my bag, several other passengers had the same experience. Now I had to wait in line to fill out the little forms to locate my bag.

I'm writing this column from my beautiful hotel room on the beach the next day – yesterday. It's nearly noon. I don't have my bag, but a United Airlines agent, whom I strongly suspect was talking to me from India, told me she had some good news for me.

Great, I thought. I'm ready for some good news.

"Your bag has been found," she informed me. "It has arrived in Atlanta."

"How is that good news?" I asked. "My bag is still in Atlanta, and I'm in Jacksonville, Florida."

"The good news is that it will be sent on the next flight to Jacksonville, and we will bring it to your hotel."

"Can you tell me what time I can expect it?"

"No," she said. "But we will get it to you as fast as we can. It will arrive in Jacksonville later this afternoon."

Of course, I'll believe it when I see it. When I can get out of the clothes I slept in last night, I might be in a better mood.

It's been almost 24 hours since I checked my bag with United Airlines for a routine, non-stop, 90-minute domestic flight. I find myself sitting in a hotel room at the beach, unable to attend the very meetings for which I went through all this trouble.

But I remain an optimist. There's still a chance I might get my clothes in time for my talk. The clock is ticking.